http://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
Nova Scotia
Joyce Barkhouse (nee
Killam) was born in Woodville, Nova Scotia on May
3, 1913. She earned her Teachers License in 1932 and began teaching in Sand
Hill, now known as East Aylesford. At the age of nineteen she had her first
short story published in Northern
Messenger, a Baptist Church paper for children. She moved to Liverpool,
Nova Scotia, to teach and met her future husband, Milton Joseph Barkhouse. They
married in 1942 and had two children. They lived in Halifax, Charlottetown, and
Montreal and after his death in 1968, Joyce moved back to Nova Scotia.
Mrs. Barkhouse wrote many young adult
adventure and secular stories for other church papers, anthologies and had
articles published in teacher’s publications, school text books, and the Family Herald and the Weekly Star. She also wrote a
self-syndicated column for weekly newspapers across Nova Scotia titled For Mothers and Others.
Although Joyce had begun writing in 1932,
her first historical book, George Dawson:
The Little Giant wasn’t published until 1974. Joyce’s niece is Margaret
Atwood and the two of them co-wrote Anna’s
Pet, a children’s book that was published in 1980. Her most notable novel
was Pit Pony, a story about the
friendship that developed between an eleven year old boy who was forced to work
in a coal mine and a Sable Island who was a pit pony in the mine. The novel was
published in 1989 and won the first Ann Connor Brimer award in 1991 for
“outstanding contribution to children’s literature in Atlantic Canada” and was
chosen by the librarians of Nova Scotia to be produced as a talking book for
the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). Pit Pony was also made into a television film in 1997 and a
television series in 1999.
Joyce Barkhouse wrote eight books and was
awarded the Order of Nova Scotia in 2007 and a year later she was made a Member
of the Order of Canada for her contributions to children’s literature. She died
at the age of ninety-eight on February 2, 2012.
Evelyn May Fox was born on May 16, 1902 on Emerald Isle (Stoddard Island) and raised on
Cape Sable Island. Both islands are off Shag Harbour, which is at the southwestern
tip of Nova Scotia. She went to high school in Halifax and then earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree at Dalhousie University. She taught school until her
marriage to Morrill Richardson in 1926. They moved to Massachusetts and then in
1929 they bought the 600 acre Bon Portage Island, a three kilometre boat ride
from Shag Harbour. There, Morrill took over the duties of light keeper.
Evelyn Richardson
helped with the lighthouse duties, raised their three children, and began her
writing career. During their thirty-five years of lighthouse keeping, she wrote
many articles and several books about her experiences on the island.
She won the Governor General’s
Award for her memoir, We Keep a Light,
in 1945, and the Ryerson Fiction Award for Desired
Haven in 1953. The Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Award is an annual
award given to a Nova Scotian writer of non-fiction.
When the lighthouse became
mechanized in 1964, Evelyn and Morrill left the island and retired to Doane’s
Point near Barrington, Nova Scotia. She died on October 14, 1976 at the age of
74.
